Shares of small space rocket company Rocket Lab USA (NASDAQ: RKLB) ran up as much as 15% in early trading on the Nasdaq Wednesday, responding to a big upgrade to outperform from analysts at Cowen.

As of 12:30 p.m. ET, Rocket Lab continues to hold onto about half those gains -- up 7.5%.

Calling Rocket Lab "the leader in the fragmented but fast-growing small sat launch market," Cowen praised the company for having "the best U.S. launch record after SpaceX." (SpaceX archrival United Launch Alliance, however, might disagree with that assessment. At last count, the Boeing and Lockheed Martin joint venture has sent 152 rockets into space in a row, "with 100 percent mission success," as that company points out.)

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Source Fool.com